I needed a bit of a break from my super intense personal blog posts so I thought I would start sharing with you all a few of my photography tricks. If you follow me on instagram then you saw many of them in my video posts a few months ago. I took them all down so thought I would write a lot of them out here so you can have them for reference if you want!

One of the first questions (besides what to wear) from my clients is usually, "where do we need to take the photos?" In the beginning of my years as a photographer that was also a very important question to me. I would spend hours scouting out the perfect locations and trying to find the exact right field or barn-like door. Now I feel like I can go *almost anywhere and get the exact shot that I want. How? Looking for the light.

The first thing I look at when I arrive at a location is where the sun is located in the sky and any area that is shaded in the vicinity. Then I decide on which shaded area I want to try first. I usually look for an area that has the sun behind it and is partially blocks out the sun if the sun is high in the sky. If the sun is lower then I just find an open area and shoot with the sun behind me. That gives my photos the dreamy, sun-washed look that you expect to see from me. Now the one thing you must be careful of is the sun-rays can impact a photo by blocking out part of a head or an entire person. So I always just move around until I get the exact right light that I want to fall on my subject. MOVE AROUND- even with an iphone. It makes such a difference!

So next time you are taking photos with your camera or iphone, try looking for the light. When I see beautiful light, I cannot help but take a photo. Just ask my patient children! Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have...

Here are a few photos that I took in the middle of Sevier Park with a tree and the sun behind my subjects. There were many distractions behind the tree but the sun was able to wash those things out so the focus could fall on my subject and the beautiful light.